Jon Huntsman Has A Job To Do

I have to admit, I came to like Jon Huntsman a little bit during his brief stint as a Republican presidential candidate. He was an Out Now guy in regards to Afghanistan, which appealed to me. And he had the undeniable asset of Not Being Insane, which was enough to allow him to maintain his viability almost all the way to Easter.

But now, well, he's behaving in a fashion that calls to mind the question that my old Irish grandmother used to direct at people she thought were behaving above their station.

I think the deliberation about the Republican Party that we're having is a very healthy thing," Huntsman told CNN. "And if we don't wind up at the end of the exercise with a mission statement that is one sentence long, then we're toast. That one statement ought to be, 'Balance the budgets and get out of people's lives.' And you ought to build the party around that because we have strong libertarian roots that go way back to the early days of the Republican Party...

Huntsman went on to warn that the party was occasionally consumed by such "fringe issues, and it gets us stuck in the alleyways of life that take our focus away from what is really important for the American people, and that is individual freedom and that is getting the budgets balanced so people can get on with their lives."

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He also modestly refused to comment about the (admittedly unlikely) possibility that he would be appointed Secretary Of State, although he did imply that he'd serve if asked.

Will of god, my grandmother would say, and who's your man when he's at home?

Can you see the problem here? Of course, you can. Huntsman is another Green Room Republican, beloved of the courtier press with its deficit-fetishism and its maudlin shawlie's worship of "bipartisanship." (Listening to Huntsman's fans among the elite media is like listening to Ron Paul's more fervid followers, except less fun.) He has less influence within the Republican party as it is presently constituted than I do. And he is not likely to develop any as the party goes through with the largely cosmetic "introspection" that at the end will result with people like Eric Cantor still considered to be leaders and people like Paul Ryan still considered to be philosophers. More Republicans take Sean Hannity seriously than take Jon Huntsman seriously, and the competition there isn't even close. Asking him what the Republicans should do so the country would start looking at them less as the vehicle for ungovernable white rage is like asking a dead deer by the side of the highway for a traffic report. If Huntsman really wants to help the country, he can get the hell off TV, go back into the party, and straighten it out from within. I keep hearing about these sensible Republicans. They must be looking for a leader by now.